Nairobi cafes buzzing as real coffee finally comes home

Time was, not so long ago, that if you wanted to buy a cup of quality Kenyan coffee your best bet was a coffee shop in the US or Europe. In Nairobi, where coffee bushes grow wild in the suburbs, people wanting a shot of caffeine made do with instant granules from a tin.

No more. Plush coffee bars are springing up all over the capital, serving home-grown lattes and cappuccinos to young, status-driven Kenyans breaking from the country's tea-drinking past. Where there were no proper coffee shops in 1999, there are now more than 20. In the gritty city centre alone, Java House, the best-known chain, serves 1,500 cups of premium coffee a day.

"Sometimes you need a real kick in the morning," said Wambui Mburu, 25, a stockbroker, drinking a cafe mocha before work. "That it comes from our back yard makes it even better."

A few years ago, nobody could have predicted the coffee shops' success. Though coffee has been grown in Kenya for more than a century, virtually all used to be exported. To guarantee the flow of foreign exchange, farmers were prohibited from harvesting and roasting beans for local consumption. Solomon Waweru, managing director of the Coffee Board of Kenya, said this meant that even coffee pickers would take a flask of tea with them into the fields.

Not only was there no coffee drinking culture, but the economy was foundering when Java opened its first outlet in a rundown shopping centre in Nairobi in 1999.

"People thought we were crazy to try to sell coffee to Kenyans," said Jon Wagner, an American former relief worker who co-founded the company eight years ago, and has seen revenues grow every quarter since. "It was virgin territory but we believed a good cup of coffee would always find a market."

While Java's stores initially proved a hit with expatriates, more than 70% of customers are now Kenyans, mostly under 40. With seven outlets, some offering wireless internet, the company plans to list on the stock exchange and open branches in Uganda and Tanzania.

Java's success has inspired other Kenyan companies to enter the field. C Dorman, a coffee exporter, has opened 10 shops in the capital since 2003 and recently opened a store in the port city of Mombasa. Sasini, a leading tea and coffee producer, is about to open its first retail store in an upmarket mall.

The growth of the coffee culture has coincided with an upswing in the economy. Many coffee shop customers are the same people targeted to buy Blackberry devices by the two mobile phone operators, and to read the new pink Business Daily newspaper.

For some, the atmosphere and exclusivity of the coffee house is as important as the beverage. "People who come here are serious people who are building the country," said Charles Maitho, 32, an insurance broker sitting in a buzzing downtown Java decorated with original art. "This is no place for idlers."